Hindi numbers and numbering system

This section provides an overview of the Hindi numerals and the numbering system.

Hindi numerals follow the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, a decimal positional notation numeral system with a set of ten digits and where the numerical value of the digit is determined by its position. The symbols for the ten digits are the digits of the Devanagari script in which Hindi is written.

Ordinal numbers

The ordinal numbers are used to show the position in a series (first, second, third, etc.) The following 5 ordinal numbers are written in the following way:

1st (first)

पहला (pa·ha·lā)

2nd (second)

दूसरा (ḍū·srā)

3rd (third)

तीसरा (ṭī·srā)

4th (fourth)

चौथा (chau·ṭhā)

6th (sixth)

छठवाँ / छठा (chhath·wāñ / chha·thā)

Other ordinal numbers are written by adding either the suffix वाँ /wāñ/ to the cardinal numbers, e.g., 5th is written as पाँचवाँ /pāñch·wāñ/. Similarly, 7th is written as सातवाँ /sāt·wāñ/, 11th as ग्यारहवाँ /gyā·rah·wāñ/ and 100th as सौवाँ /sau·wāñ/.

Cardinal numbers

The cardinal numbers are used in simple counting and denote quantity (one, two, three, etc.) The numbers listed on the table above are the cardinal numbers in Hindi.
The numbers after one hundred, e.g., the hundreds, the thousands, are named in a regular way, e.g., "ek sau char" /104/, "do hajaar teen sau" /2300/. Every new term greater than thousand is one hundred times larger than the previous term. Thus, lakh means a hundred thousand, karod means a hundred lakh, and so on.
The negative numbers are written by adding a minus sign in front and are named as their corresponding positive number with "minus" added in front, e.g., "minus ek."

Decimal mark: A dot "." is used as decimal mark to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form.
Digit grouping: For ease of reading, numbers with many digits are divided into groups using commas as the separator. The separators are only employed to the left of the decimal mark. The rightmost three digits are grouped together, but then two digits are grouped together thereafter, e.g., 1,23,45,67,890.

Hindi alphabet and Nepali alphabet

NLRC also aims to promote the regional languages of Nepal. Besides the Nepali language, the most common language of Nepal, various regional languages are spoken across the country. In the Terai region, the southern plains of Nepal that border India, Hindi also serves as a common language between the communities speaking different regional languages.

As both the Hindi alphabet and the Nepali alphabet are written using the Devanagari script, they share many common features in the manner in which they are written, and the characters used to write them are mostly the same, including the dependent vowel signs, digits and other characters. See Nepali alphabet and writing system for more details on the characters used in the Nepali writing system.

There are a few differences in the two writing systems, especially on the use of Chandrabindu and Shirbindu and other vowel signs, but the main difference between them is that the Nepali alphabet does not use Nukta, hence the two additional consonants present in the standard Hindi alphabet, ड़ and ढ़, as well as other forms of letters that include the Nukta mark in the traditional Hindi alphabet and the standard Hindi alphabet, are not present in the Nepali alphabet.